Gabriel Gold
by sheyannelynn1
Summary: Fledgling Cas gets jealous of his brother's wings and takes things into his own hands


"Aren't Gabriel's wings just perfect?"

"Don't you wish yours looked like that?"

"Even out of the archangels, his are the prettiest."

That's all Castiel heard, day after day, was praise of his brother's beautiful golden wings and it was true. They were beautiful. Six beautiful golden wings that shimmered in the sun, the longest of which were well over twelve feet long, giving him an impressive 25-foot wingspan. Much prettier than Castiel's own dull, black wings, slightly undersized for his age at just barely two feet each.

Castiel was almost three hundred years old but by human standards, he appeared to be no more than five or six and, though highly intelligent, his logic and reasoning skills still worked much on the same level as that of a human child. Which is probably why one day, after hearing the other angels praise Gabriel's wings to no end, he sought out a can of yellow paint, the closest color to what he referred to as Gabriel Gold he could find, and started to carefully paint his tiny wings. He worked quickly, eager to finish and show Gabriel, and became quite frustrated when he couldn't reach the feathers closest to his shoulder blades so he carefully hefted the can onto his shoulder and poured it down his back. Cas inspected his wings in the mirror and, being quite proud of his work, scampered off to find Gabriel.

He found Gabriel in the music room, happily playing his horn and chewing on a piece of sugar cane from the garden. "Gaby!" the fledgling exclaimed, "Gaby, look how pretty I am!" He tried to flutter his newly painted wings to draw his brother's attention but when he did a sharp, tight pain rippled through his wings and his upper back.

Gabriel's head whipped around at the sound of the child's pained cry and he dropped both his instrument and the piece of sugar cane to carefully scoop Castiel into his arms. "Little bird, you're covered in paint," the archangel said softly, "what happened?"

"I wanted to be pretty," Castiel sniffled, "pretty like you."

"You are pretty," Gabriel smiled, "you're beautiful Cassy, but you'll be even more beautiful once we get all this icky sticky paint off you. What do you think?"

Cas sniffed again and nodded, trying to keep his lower lip from trembling as he was carried to the bath and sat down in the warm water.

Gabriel scrubbed gently at the dried paint, frowning when he was forced to get paint thinner and a stiff wire brush. "Now this might hurt a little," he warned, "but I need you to know it's not on purpose and I'll try to be as gentle as possible."

Castiel nodded and rubbed his eyes, feeling very stupid about the whole thing and soon holding back small whimpers of pain as Gabriel ever so carefully worked the paint out, taking a good portion of his feathers with it.

Castiel was lifted out of the tub and lovingly wrapped in a fluffy blue towel as Gabriel once again scooped him up and carried the fledgling back to his room.

Not until Castiel was clean and dry and wrapped in a new tunic did he even dare to look at the state of his wings, bursting into tears when he found them plucked almost bare, scraggly feathers hanging on for dear life and looking worse than they did before.

"Oh, Little Bird, don't cry," Gabriel said softly "they'll grow back, I promise."

"But I don't _want_ them to grow back," Castiel sobbed "I don't want stupid black feathers. Nobody likes my wings and now they're all gross and naked."

"Naked wings aren't gross," Gabriel said gently, sitting down and pulling Castiel into his lap. "And when your feathers grow back, they'll be soft and downy like a baby and everybody will want to touch them."

Castiel beat on his brother's chest with tiny fists. "You're not listening!" he cried, "I don't want black wings! Nobody wants black wings because black wings are ugly like the mean old crow!"

Gabriel smiled softly and ran his hands over the naked gooseflesh of what had once been his baby brother's magnificent wings. "But your wings aren't black, Little Bird," the archangel said gently "they're onyx, beautiful shimmering onyx, and in just the right light, when you learn to fly, they'll be the deepest, darkest, bluish purple of the ocean floor, and do you want to know a secret?"

Castiel wiped his little, red nose on the front of Gabriel's tunic and nodded eagerly.

Gabriel grinned and leaned in, whispering in the fledgling's ear, "I wish my wings looked just like yours."


End file.
